of Winning & Keeping Customers

(inspired by true events)

Calling all gurus - you know who you are. I'm not a guru, I'm just a regular guy struggling to make it through the daylong scourge of dealing with the companies who enable my life - y'know, telephone company, insurance, mortgage and banks, credit card companies, electric and gas utilities.

You talk about Why's and How's and Efficiencies and Trends, illuminating us with your wisdom -- much appreciated, for sure, don't think I poopoo you, and in fact I occasionally do learn from you. But there's one thing you all seem to be missing; the seeming rarity to be able to readily speak with a human being that can make your life easier. Even you @MarkRitson my idol, haven't addressed it (to my knowledge). And the first to crack that challenge will be an instant billionaire and the guruest of all gurus, ever.

I'm talking about ‘customer service’. Let me expand.

Me, regular customer of many companies, on-time bill-paying guy, month after month. Now let me tell you my experience just this past month -- and please note that I'm telling you the truth, I am NOT exaggerating anything:

- United Healthcare, dental insurance: after years of paying my monthly premium online in about 45 seconds, enter 'Optum' (a merger? an acquisition? it's a mystery); but all of a sudden their system first asks me to set another OneHealthcare account, then proceeds not to find me and not accepting any password. I call - who did you call you may ask? I call the number ON THEIR OWN latest invoice. It's not the right one, and it routes me to a maze of different venues. For the next two and a half hours I speak to SEVEN people, each one of them cannot find me in their system(s), no matter what I give them - SS number, phone number, address, the customer number ON THEIR OWN bill to me, nothing, warmly telling me "I'll transfer you to the person that will help". At the last person, I get disconnected -- I ended up sending the payment by check & snail mail.

- Verizon, cellphone service: this month an additional charge appeared on my bill, totalling $420 - as so this month my bill is over $700. I call: the automated system tells me that it's sending a text message with a link I should click and from there I can ask to be called back. I do so, three times - total of six hours waiting for a call back. Then ... the NEXT day a nice lady came on the phone and fixed things - in a one hour and fortynine minutes phone call. Skating on thin ice Verizon Wireless, three years ago I had left AT&T after twenty years (and while we had the Branding account) because they misbehaved quite a bit and came to you - and now I was close to leaving you for ... what, T-Mobile maybe?

- Optimum, home internet: it's three weeks that the home connection is intermittent, disaster in Covid times: the first week they send a repairman who says that he's going to fix a short wire outside and things will be mostly fine but in a couple of days a basket truck will come to fix something high up on the street pole. Noone shows up in the next four days, so I call back, and another repairman comes five days later (10am to 8pm is the 'assigned' time) and goes up the pole and tells me that all's good. Two hours late the intermittent service continues. I call, they give me an appointment for four days later. Two days later I get a message that says that it seems the service is working well (it's not) and would I want to cancel the service call. I press 2 for No. The repairman comes, amiable fellow, changes the cable box -- tells me that Optimum embraced the Altice system even though the old Cablevision box is much better -- and whispers&winks me that at home he has Verizon internet service.

- Facebook: as I posted a while ago, my account was hacked, and after SEVEN WEEKS of trying to resolve things and being unable to speak with ANYone at Facebook, I opened a whole new account.

- and then the champions: APPLE, I go to the website, two clicks, and a knowledgeable person calls me back in less than five minutes; STATE FARM, car and home insurance, I call a number I was given six years ago, a person answers, I'm in and out and whatever problem is solved in a matter of minutes; CAPITAL BANK, my bank: perfect, online and on the phone, and as of late a hacker got more than $10,000 out of one account and they refunded it all to me within one day; and I joined it after I left Chase, as I had heard of their great service.

Things are clear: there are companies that for whatever reason and in whichever way manage to ... never mind the nirvana of 'taking care' of customers, that's the high bar, but at least interact with the people who keeps them in business.

I truly hope that the scourge of runaround phoneclicks maze and the ruse of 'efficient' email-only contact will drive these companies into the ground. On my part, I will leave UHC for someone else, I will leave Optimum internet for Verizon internet, and I'd love to leave Facebook but then I'll miss all my friends around the world. And as mentioned, I did just that a few years ago with AT&T and Chase, after 25+ years with both of them.

As I said I’m not a guru, management or otherwise – but let me take a stab at it: the world is increasingly going Automated, that’s an indisputable fact; and these problems are exacerbating fast. But Automated is not and never will be Human – not matter how many billions you pour into AI and Machine Learning – that can’t and won’t be the answer, at least for a few more generations. I’m an Asimov fan, and not even he had an automated universe. And so, use AI and Machine Learning not to replace Humans but to support them. At Facebook for example, I completely understand that you have 2.9 BILLION customers – every month – and it’s not reasonable that you are able to ‘serve’ them at their whim. But stop inundating me with email instructions that never seems to address the issue I’m having and definitely stop the odious approach to tell me to go and get answers from the ‘user community bulletin board’; just find a way to escalate issues in such a way that THERE IS a knowledgeable human at the end of a road.

Brand Loyalty and CustomerCentricityTalk and SharingValues my arse (as @MarkRitson might say) --- I pay you for Something and you give me that Something and you better be ready to help if that Something is no longer there for whatever reason. That’s not even ‘service’, which sounds like they do you a favor: that's the simple and factual contract we enter in -- just live by it. THAT should be your very first responsibility in your Purpose or Mission or Vision or Brand Positioning or Market Promise or Value Proposition or Strategic Business Plan or Illuminated Marketing statements or cool Advertising campaigns. In the past couple of years in my branding work I always ask the Customer Service question in Phase 1 management interviews, and you won't believe the blank stares I typically get from the executives I'm talking to.

And so Illustrious Gurus, earn your guruness by writing books and giving illuminated speeches with smart solutions to this problem - 'cause if one loses a customer, unless it’s a monopoly they may very well never get it back.

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